CLIVE Myrie has opened up about the horrific racist abuse and death threats he has received since becoming the host of Mastermind.
The 56-year-old newsreader is set to join the show later this year after taking over from iconic show host John Humphreys.
Clive has been presenting on the BBC for over three decades, and said he hoped to “bring a little bit” of his “own personality” to Mastermind.
However, despite hoping the new gig would be “liberating”, the journalist revealed he has been receiving “racist abuse”, and it’s currently the “worst it’s ever been” since joining the TV giant in 1988.
He told Radio 4’s Fortunately with Fi and Jane podcast that there were “four or five” serious death threats sent his way in recent years.
Clive revealed that BBC Investigations were trying to “track down” the individuals who sent them as they worried for his safety.
Warning the racist abuse was “increasing” against him and other black stars at the BBC, he recalled one vile letter he received from a viewer.
“You hav a f*** you attitude, you dress like a pimp and I think you should go and work somewhere else,” Clive recalled the note saying.
A second told him to “quit” his job, with the presenter adding: “I received a card in the post with a gorilla on the front of it.”
“It read, ‘We don’t want people like you on our TV screens’,” he added, before explaining he just “chucked it in the bin”.
The recent spike saw a racist abuser and far-right extremist jailed last year after sending a death threat to Clive.
Before this, in his 30 year career the star said he could “count on the fingers of one hand” the times he had been racially abused.
He explained that one individual in the “early Nineties” used to “send faeces in the post” as a repeat offender, but it had “picked up in the last decade”.
He told The Guardian that he “didn’t know” why the abuse had “become incredibly more prevalent in the last few years”.
“You just ride with it, it’s incredibly depressing,” he added, sating he had learnt to not let the abuse “really bother him”.
Clive is due to take over from John Humphreys after 18 years in the quizmater’s chair.
The BBC star will become the fifth host of Mastermind, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year and begins filming in July.
